Bug#775756: -ao pulse stopped producing audio; alsa and oss still work

[Josh Triplett]

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 08:45:46AM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote:
> Package: mplayer2
> Version: 2.0-728-g2c378c7-4+b1
> Severity: normal
> 
> A couple of days ago, "mplayer -ao pulse" (the default without -ao
> specified) stopped producing output.  A running mplayer2 still shows up in
> pulseaudio's "applications" list, but produces no audio.  Changing
> volume and toggling mute have no effect.
> 
> "mplayer -ao alsa" still works, as does "padsp mplayer -ao oss".  paplay
> works as well, as do other applications using pulseaudio.
> 
> I tried downgrading libav libraries to before the most recent upgrade a
> couple of days ago, but that doesn't seem to have made a difference.

After further investigation, it looks like this is tied to HDMI audio.

I hooked up to an external HDMI monitor, and used the GNOME sound
control panel to switch audio output to HDMI, then played a few movies.
Afterward, I disconnected from that monitor, but I didn't have any sound
from the default "pulse" audio output device; "mplayer -ao alsa" worked.
Just now, I connected to another external monitor, and found that the
default pulse output worked, without even switching over to it.  I
manually switched back to speakers, and now the default sound output
works again, even after disconnecting.  It looks like somehow Pulse got
into a state where it thought it was sending sound to HDMI.  *However*,
that state somehow only affected mplayer, not totem, paplay, or the alsa
output device.

Not sure where the bug was, here, but there's definitely a bug.

- Josh Triplett